


what they did to you

by ocheeva



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, i'm sorry i just have a lot of feels, ship is mostly implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 06:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1294681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocheeva/pseuds/ocheeva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Horizon is messy and sad and horribly unfair to the VS and as much as I love Shepard I feel so sad. The VS deserves more, will always deserve more, so here is a piece focusing on Ashley and her feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what they did to you

Ashley wants Shepard to say something to confirm that Cerberus has altered her, affected her, stripped her of choice because that is the only way to make sense of the words falling from her mouth, shattering like glass on the ground between them, making it impossible to cross the gap of four feet and two years and broken trust to embrace her again without getting hurt. 

Ashley wants Shepard to disappoint her, wants to be given an excuse to give up and walk away without being burdened by guilt and regret, without feeling like she is the one at fault. She doesn’t want to believe that Shepard is right, that Shepard is still a person with good intentions under the rock-hard surface and tendency to solve problems with her gun. She doesn’t want Shepard to be the same woman she was two years ago, exceeding everyone’s expectations and excelling at everything she took the time to do and extending a hand to a Williams who was stuck crawling in the mud while others who weren’t half as strong or stubborn got to explore distant star systems. She wants Shepard to be tarnished and different because that is the only way it can be allright for her to turn her back and walk away and ask the Alliance to come pick her up. She doesn’t want Shepard to simultaneously be someone she’s kissed and someone working under the Illusive Man.

A part of her still wants to turn towards the sound of a shuttle taking off and ask it to return, to take her with, because a part of her can see that Shepard is still the same. Not on the surface, maybe - the old scars on her face are gone, replaced with ugly cracks in her skin that glow artificial and alien, but the burning gaze and the intensity of her voice is the same. The stance and the set of her mouth are the same but something in her face is still indescribably… off.

Sighing, Ashley sits down on a crate, ignores the sounds of the mechanic trying to clean up and tries to think of her sisters, her work, anything but her failure to protect the colony. Anything but Shepard.

It’s easier said than done, of course, because all around her the silence presses in on her, heavy and sticky like the guilt swelling in her chest. She couldn’t protect this colony, couldn’t get them to follow and trust her and she’s unable to push away the nagging thoughts that Shepard could have saved them if she’d been here from the start, could have gotten them to follow and trust her and fight by her side the way she makes everyone trust and follow and _love_ her.

Ashley rests her head in her hands, too weary, too empty.


End file.
